


Bookstore Mischief

by warriorprincessclarke



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Meeting, F/M, Fake Dating, Fluff, SO MUCH FLUFF, in a very low key way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 13:12:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13435431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warriorprincessclarke/pseuds/warriorprincessclarke
Summary: Caleb is looking for a book at a bookstore where he finds Jester wreaking some very low key havoc





	Bookstore Mischief

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to be just a test to see if i could get their voices down but it turned into a whole fic so enjoy

Caleb was in a bookstore. What was new? 

He had been scouring the shelves of every bookstore and library in town looking for a book of which its name he didn’t know because he’d only heard about it in passing. Its existence was merely a rumor passed between clueless drunkards at a nearby tavern. But his search was fervent nonetheless. If only a fraction of the rumors of this book’s power were true, the days he had spent searching would have been worth it.

This was his fourth bookstore in the past two days. It was smaller than the others, but by no means did that mean less books. The books were so cramped on the rickety shelves that Caleb had to yank them out and pound them back in, and they never exactly went back in properly.

The shopkeeper had pointed him in a vague direction, but Caleb could tell that there was no method to this shop’s madness. He would have to rummage through the entire shop. The notion filled him with glee, there was no better way he could think of to spend the day.

An hour into his search he picked up a book that looked promising, dark red leather with golden embellishments swirling up and down the spine. Upon further inspection it was a book about farming. No luck. He went to begin his attempts at shoving the book back in its place but stopped when he heard something on the other side of the shelf. 

It was someone giggling. Maybe a young girl. He hadn’t heard the bell at the front door chime, this person must have been in there a long time. The giggling stopped, so Caleb went back to work.

He pulled out another book, this time the history of some city way off in Tal’Dorei- entirely unhelpful. This time when he went to force the books apart to make room for the one he’d taken, he didn’t hear something, he  _ saw  _ something.

The shelves in this shop were open so the books on either side fit back to back so if you took a book off the shelf, you could see the books on the other side. Except, in the space where Caleb expected to see a wall of books, he saw a face staring back at him. 

“Hello, mister!” Said the blue faced tiefling. 

“Uh- hello?” Caleb said, thrown off by her enthusiasm.

“What are you doing?” She asked.

“Looking for a book.” He said. What else would he be doing?

“Oh. I’m not.” She giggled. “Do you want to see something really cool?” Her eyes lit up like they contained little blue flames. For a moment Caleb wasn’t sure if that was something tieflings could actually do or if her excitement was playing tricks on him. He decided on the latter but remained open minded.

He found her unwavering excitement about nothing in particular rather charming, so he agreed.

“Yes, I would love to see something cool.” He said, indulging her.

“It is  _ really  _ cool.” She corrected him, maintaining her infectious grin.

Suddenly her face disappeared from the gap. Caleb angled his head to see if she was still back there, so he was surprised when he felt a rapid poking on his shoulder. He turned around and she was standing there with the same look on her face as before.

“Hello stinky man!” Stinky? “I am Jester.” She held out a light blue hand with long navy blue nails. He took it tentatively.

“My name is Caleb,” He said, then he decided to add, “not stinky man.”

“Maybe you should change it, stinky man is way more accurate.” She fanned her nose a little overdramatically. It’s true he hadn’t had a proper bath in a few days, but this was definitely overkill.

Something about this girl made it impossible for him to take offense to the blatant insult. She said it with such confidence and earnest that it was obvious she meant no harm by saying it. So instead of saying anything about it, he just chuckled, albeit awkwardly.

Small talk out of the way, Jester grabbed his arm and yelled, “Come on!” She dragged him down the aisle and around the corner to where she had just been. 

The sight was a disaster. There were books all over the floor in combinations of unruly heaps and carefully stacked towers. Although many books remained on the shelves, almost every single one of them was inverted so the pages were visible in place of the decorative spines. The shelves on either side of him were no longer a muted rainbow but a wall of parchment yellow.

“Ta-da!” Jester spread her arms out wide, gesturing to everything around her. 

“What did you do?” Caleb said, a twinge of disapproval in his voice.

“Can you not see? I turned all of the books inside out! If you cannot see that you should maybe get your eyes checked out.” Jester said, making circular motions around her eyes, he guessed to indicate glasses. 

“No, I can see that. What about the poor shopkeeper?”

“Won’t it be so funny to see his face when he finds it?” Jester was having a hard time containing her laughter. She tried to cover her mouth but the laughs forced their way through her fingers. Caleb couldn’t fight off the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“I don’t know about that, he might be mad at you.” Caleb said.

“Ugh, Caleb you are so  _ boring.  _ I have not even known you for five minutes and I can tell that.” She puts her hand around her mouth like she’s whispering but does nothing to change her volume. 

Every time she says something insulting to him, she says it like she’s doing him a service. It’s cute. She is probably the only person who could make these insults sound cute.

Pushing the topic away from him, Caleb says, “How long have you been doing this?”

Before Caleb can get the last syllable out, Jester yells, “Hours!” Caleb must look shocked because Jester goes on to say, “It is really not that hard, I promise. You can try too!” She pointed to the corner of one of the top shelves, where there was a couple of books she had missed. 

“Oh, I can’t.” Caleb said.

“Can you not reach it?” Jester asked, looking confused.

With anyone else he would assume that she was being so literal to get on his nerves. But with her everything was so genuine.

“No, no I can reach it.” He explained.

“Then what is the problem?” Jester asked. Caleb tried to form the right words but before he could, Jester gasped like she had a realization. “It is because you are boring isn’t it?” She put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

Caleb closed his eyes and shook his head, letting out a low chuckle. “Yes, it’s because I’m boring.” That was the only way she was going to understand his qualms with defacing somebody else’s property.

“I can fix that! Here, you just take your hand like this,” Jester reached up for one of the two unturned books and flipped it backwards painstakingly slowly, watching him to make sure he understood how to do it. “See! It’s easy.”

“I just don’t want to upset the shopkeeper.” Caleb said.

“Look at how much stuff I did already, if he is mad I will pretend  _ I _ flipped your book. He will not be mad at you, I pinky promise.” She stuck out her pinky, her eyes urging him to take it.

Caleb raised his hand, pinky extended, hesitantly. Jester’s eyes did that fiery excited thing again, and before he had a chance to consider backing out of what he was sure Jester thought was an unbreakable promise, Jester shoved her pinky into his and gave it a hearty shake.

What was the harm in turning one book? He decided he would do it for the sake of seeing Jester’s face light up when he proved he wasn’t boring anymore.

Caleb reached up for the leatherbound green book and pulled it out of its spot. With the book in his hands, he looked up at Jester. Her hands were clasped in front of her and she was bouncing up and down in anticipation. The pure giddiness she was exuding put a warm smile on his face. Any small traces of guilt for contributing to this chaos had evaporated in the sun shininess of her smile.  He flipped the book around in his hands and Jester whispered words of encouragement to him. Unneeded, but endearing. 

He was halfway through shoving the book into its place when a voice, that was nowhere close to Jester’s bubbly accent, said, “What are you doing?”

It was the shopkeeper. Caleb turned around to see the man’s bewildered, bordering on furious face. The redness of his face was visible even under his stark white beard.

“Oh, I was just-” Caleb had no end to that sentence, but luckily Jester did.

“This is my boyfriend.” Well, not exactly the end Caleb had in mind. “He was just telling me what a bad idea this was. He is always raining on all of my parades, so boring. He is on your side in all of this, sir.”

Way to sell it Jester.

“Your boyfriend? The guy who came in three hours after you did without mentioning you at all?” The man asked in his harsh accent, bolstered by his growing anger.

“Yep, that is the one, isn’t he cute?” Jester grabbed Caleb by the crook of his elbow. He patted her hand for added effect, though this man was not buying it.

“Well young lady, since apparently you were doing this alone, you can be the one to clean it up alone.” The shopkeeper said. “Your boyfriend is off the hook.”

“Actually,” Jester said, drawing out the word longer than anyone should, “Me and my  _ boyfriend _ have to go right now. It really was not very hard doing all of this so it should not be very hard for you to put them all away.” She tugged Caleb’s arm and led him past the shopkeeper, who was still processing Jester’s string of socially nonsensical words.

They had nearly gotten to the door before they heard the shopkeeper running after them saying, “Wait, you can’t leave-”

“Goodbye! Thank you for letting me hang out in your store for so long!” Jester shut him down with such confidence that the man stopped in his tracks and let them leave the store. 

They walked about a block before stopping. Caleb dropped her arms, which had been holding his elbow tightly the whole time.

“That was,” he considered the word he wanted to use, “impressive.”

“I don’t like it when people are mad at me so I just walk away from them. It is very effective. You should try it sometime Caleb, since you are so worried about people being mad all of the time.”

Once again, her eyes were earnest. 

Caleb chuckled, “I’ll think about it.”

The two of them stood on the sidewalk, not saying anything. Unsure of where to go from there.

“So,” Caleb broke the silence, “I’m your boyfriend now, huh?” He joked, knowing full well he was risking a big misunderstanding.

“You are not a very good boyfriend,” Jester said, exasperatedly, “you have not even taken me out for dinner yet.”

Caleb laughed. This time not a stifled chuckle, a full unadulterated laugh. Though he stopped short when Jester grabbed his wrist and began pulling him down the sidewalk.

“Whoa, where are we going?” Caleb asked.

Jester scoffed as if it were obvious, “You are taking me out for dinner, dummy.”

**Author's Note:**

> i might write another part to this who knows so stay turnt my friends


End file.
